


Life model

by katiebuttercup



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Altair is trying to help...mostly, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Girl!leonardo is blissfully unaware of Ezio's feelings, fem!leonardo, girl!leonardo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-09 07:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5531156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiebuttercup/pseuds/katiebuttercup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezio is no closer to telling Lenore how he feels. Altair decides to help</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have only seen screencaps for this pair as I've only just fallen into the AC universe so I apologise if this doesn't fit Canon or is crap
> 
> Altair may be occ but it's a modern au so I thought that it would be okay

Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction 

 

Altair waits until he hears Ezio in the next room before shedding his shirt and throwing it artfully over Lenore's bed. He moves soundlessly across the floor and peers through the crack in the door. 

Ezio is leaning against the table as Lenore bustles around the room. It's large and bare, a converted warehouse that had been hurriedly turned into apartments. Most of Lenore's neighbours were artists. The blank walls and relative solitude meant that Altair and Ezio felt confidant in using Lenore's apartment as a semi base. People came and went all the time, no one noticed a hooded figure entering and leaving at odd times. 

Of course Ezio's reasons were slightly different. 

His brother assassin felt no fear in taking on his targets, silent and deadly as he was. But somehow a lowly student artist held him hostage with only a glance.

Altair straightens his shoulders, bracing himself for a less then warm welcome. 

"Are you ready Lenore?" He keeps the door open as he steps through the doorway. He keeps his gaze on the blonde knowing that Ezio's sharp eyes have already zeroed in on his discarded shirt and where it sits not so innocently on Lenore's bedspread.. 

Lenore looks up, a brush set between her teeth, completely unaware of the atmosphere between the two assassins.

"Oh, Altair, yes. Please sit for a moment" 

Altair is very aware that his brother assassin would like nothing better then to sink his hidden blade between his shoulder blades. But Altair had given him plenty of chances. Push has come to shove. 

"Altair agreed to model for me," Lenore is saying and Ezio's burning gaze turns to the artist, softening considerably as he does do. Altair isn't sure how Lenore consistantly ignores what's in front of her face when she was so perceptive in every other subject. A child genius she had grown into her many talents and had become an invaluable asset to the brotherhood. He knew Ezio was torn between relying on her innumerable talents to help the assassins and keeping her safe. 

"This semester we're drawing human anatomy," Lenore continues, "and of course I thought of Altair," 

"How kind of him," Ezio says neutrally. He wants to ask why Lenore didn't ask him, Altair knows, but he won't.

"I know," Lenore says, she's rifling through her paint brushes, barely paying attention to her assassin guests. Art takes over Lenore's life. She can be remarkably focused even if her default personality tended to be a little flighty. Ezio called her a daydreamer. 

"I just needed someone who could sit still-you'd be surprised how many people fidget. And what better model then an assassin" Lenore says. 

She gently leads Altair to a stool in the middle of the large room. Altair lets her guide him and mold him how she pleases. It takes a while but Lenore's hands are gentle and warm on his skin. 

"Oh! I need my sketch book!" 

Lenore ducks under Altair's raised arm and disappears into her bedroom. Altair braces himself for a wait. Lenore was prodigiously talented but that didn't always extend to neatness with her belongings. 

To his credit Ezio doesn't haul back and hit him like Altair half expects but his eyes are dark and he crosses his arms across his chest. 

"What are you doing!?" 

Altair decides to play dumb. "Modelling" 

When Ezio's expression remains thunderous, Altair relents. 

"You do not have a monopoly on Lenore's time. She will not always be at your beck and call between missions and womanising. There are others who would not hesitate as you do"

Ezio's voice is low and dangerous, "Others like you?"

Altair shrugs, "Perhaps, perhaps not."

Lenore reappears, sketch book in hand. 

"Are you staying Ezio?" Lenore asks. Ezio doesn't take his eyes from Altair but he addresses Lenore when he speaks. 

"No, I have other business to attend to"

"Okay," Lenore is unruffled as ever. But Ezio is unbalanced. Altair knows that his fellow assassin will go and find the nearest high place to think. 

Ezio is gone in a blink of an eye. Lenore's pretty face is marked with concentration as she corrects Altair's arm. He hopes he has sent Ezio a message. To hesitate is to miss your target. It is not in the nature of an assassin. 

Ezio has never missed his mark. Altair won't let him start now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezio likes these quiet times with Lenore 
> 
> (Set before first chapter)

The canvas is slowly coming to life with each stroke of the brush. Ezio doesn't quite know how something so mundane as paint can create such beauty. But it's part of Lenore's instinctual genius. Beneath the cowl of his hood-pulled over his features despite the heavy sunlight that comes through the ancient and scratched Windows above them Ezio watches with unguarded joy. 

Ezio could watch Lenore paint all day and need no other stimulus. There is nothing about Lenore's process that he doesn't find intriguing. 

"Won't you take your hood off?" Lenore asks two hours into her canvas. She takes a sip of orange juice through a straw which Ezio had been sure to place there. When she painted things like eating and drinking took a backseat and more than once Ezio had had to make sure the artist ate something before she collapsed. 

"No," it's a short answer but his tone belies his gruff answer. Lenore was his best friend, but there were things he could not tell her. And other things he choose to hold back-Lenore was such a mystery to him sometimes that he felt justified in being mysterious. Besides it almost always got a smile on her face and a joke that he did look dashing in his robes.

And it was also a hiding place.

Beneath the hood with his eyes shadowed and features obscured he could look at Lenore without worrying that his face gave too much away, that a heated glance could be seen. 

Nothing worried Ezio so much as letting his face betray his heart. 

He wasn't ready.

Not yet.


	3. Hidden in plain view

Ezio drops silently from Lenore's windowsill, moving to the bedroom door. Before he can alert Lenore to his presence a harsh knocking comes from her front door. 

Ezio swears under his breath. He should never have come here especially since this guard in particular had been impossible to shake off. He hadn't been like the others, he was smart and tough. And Ezio fears he may even know who Ezio was-not that he had seen his face, he had been careful to wear his hood but that he may know that he was an assassin. 

"Coming!" Lenore's cheerful voice carried through the air. 

Lenore's cheerful disposition doesn't waver in the slightest even in the face of the guards billigerant glare. 

"Can I help you?" 

"Someone was seen climbing through your window." The guard says, his tone flat and imposing. He's trying to intimidate her. 

Lenore's face is a picture of innocence. She doesn't look back at her bedroom door but she knows Ezio is here. 

"There's nobody here," Lenore says, she opens the door wider. The guard pushes past the artist, forcing the blonde to stumble back. Ezio finds his expression hardening. If the guard lays a finger on Lenore he will not hesitate to eliminate him.

But the guard seems much more interested in combing the room, having scant regard for Lenore's belongings. He shoves things out of his way with increasing force when it becomes apparent that the room is empty. He strides towards Lenore's bedroom and Ezio backs up. There is no choice but outside. 

Ezio balances on the window sill, he has no idea if the guard has called reinforcements. The only way is up. The building next to Lenore's is impossible to scale for a normal human but for an assassin its little more than a difficult jump. He lands with a soft thud, blending into the darkness as the light in Lenore's bedroom switches on. 

A moment later the guard appears at the window, scowling as he judges the impossible jump. 

"I told you," Lenore is saying, "there's no way anyone could've got through my bedroom window. Unless it's Spider-Man. And I don't like spiders" she shudders theatrically. 

The guard rounds on Lenore. He is much broader and stronger and to Ezio she seems tiny in comparison. The hidden blade itches to be released. 

"If you see or hear anything--" His tone is surprisingly mellow for a man who had lost his target but it's a threat and both Lenore and Ezio hear it clear as day. But Lenore raises her chin defiantly. She's scared, Ezio can tell but she doesn't waver at all. 

"You'll be the first to know," 

Ezio's eyes glow gold in the night. He waits until the guard leaves, slamming the door behind him. 

A moment later Ezio slips back into Lenore's room. There is a pale cast to Lenore face and her fingers tremble as she holds herself. Ezio yearns to hold her, but when he moves towards her she turns away. 

"It's always exciting with you around," Lenore jokes as she moves back into the main room and sitting at the table. She sits, picking up some charcoal and making long, circular motions on a blank peice of paper. 

"I'm sorry," Ezio says, unable to make light of the situation. His worst nightmare unfurling before his eyes. That who he was would get her into trouble. 

Ezio had no doubt the guard would be back. 

"Don't be," Lenore says but there's something brittle in her tone.

"I'll go," Ezio says, "I'll warn the others not to come by till the problem's been dealt with" Ezio has research to do before he can eliminate the guard for good. Who is he? What does he know? And can he be taken out without causing an unfortunate chain reaction.

Lenore opens her mouth but no words come out. She fiddles with the charcoal. It's staining her fingers black. Ezio loves Lenore's fingers, long, supple, artist fingers. 

There is a struggle on Lenore's face but finally she finds her voice. "You don't have to do that Ezio. I mean this is your home as much as mine. I keep meaning to make you pay rent" 

Ezio laughs, more out of relief for the return of Lenore's good humour. 

"It's not safe. I've created a problem and it needs to be fixed. That guy is going to come back. He may brush this one incident off as a fluke but any more and it becomes a pattern."  
Ezio says. He's right. He hates being right. 

"Will you--" Lenore clears her throat, "I mean where will you go?"

"There are other places in the city." Ezio says, the assassins are few in number, the number of safe places even fewer. Crossing off Lenore's apartment is a blow that the assassins cannot afford. 

"Oh," that should have made Lenore feel better but it doesn't. 

Silence stretches between them. Ezio knows he should report back, he knows every second he stays here he could be in danger. But with Lenore he always feels safe. 

"Can we still hang out?" Lenore asks, "I mean he's not going to be following me every second of the day" 

Ezio isn't so sure. But being with Lenore is a drug he has yet to find a cure for. He should keep his distance completely until he knows it's safe. But he can't. 

"Sure. Can't get rid of me that easily," Ezio says. 

Lenore smiles, full of fun and mischief and relief. "Best get going spider man," 

"Does that make you Mary Jane?" 

Lenore laughs but Ezio notices she doesn't say no.


End file.
